Rock Food Concepts are urging local businesses to switch from single use plastic straws to greener alternatives.

It’s heart-breaking to see the affects of single use plastics in our seas and at Rock Food Concepts we are pledging to commit to switching to more sustainable alternatives. With immediate effect, we will be removing straws entirely from the large proportion of our drinks at all of our venues. The straws that we now stock are wheat based and fully biodegradable.

Meanwhile, local charity Beach Buddies had a record-breaking number of volunteers at 2018's first weekly volunteer event in Ballaugh.

123 volunteers, beating the previous record of 83, and 183 bags of rubbish were collected, just over double the previous record of 91.

They will now double-up on events each weekend, to allow more people to take part instead of only Sunday's.

The sheer number of people, and especially the number of families, was actually quite humbling. There has suddenly been a lot of publicity lately about the way we have abused the oceans, and it’s fantastic that people are now starting to take notice and show that they care, but this was totally unexpected.